


your name on my mind

by owilde



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - No Zombie Apocalypse, Attempt at Humor, Dialogue Heavy, F/F, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Romance, Trans Character, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-07-01 03:30:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15765699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owilde/pseuds/owilde
Summary: Violet scratched Clementine's name on to her desk. It was just an impulse - one of those quick decisions that had actually been simmering in the back of her mind for a while, and just decided to pop up now. It was kind of romantic, she though. And Violet was nothing if not romantic.





	your name on my mind

**Author's Note:**

> hey i couldn't stop thinking about violentine in a cute fluffy AU, so... i wrote it. also yeah, the louis/marlon is background even though i still love clem/violet/louis. i'm just a big multishipper sdfbj

Violet pressed her pen harder against the desk, chipping away at the pale wood. She’d already carved the C, and was working her way to L and then further, to E and M. She’d contemplated going all the way with the name, but fuck it – she liked nicknames, and her pen was sort of at the end of its rope. And besides, Mr. Everett was shooting suspicious glances her way in between teaching about the Civil War, and she was deep enough in his bad graces already. Something about dating his favorite student. That, and the fact that she kept spraying the outer walls with what was considered ‘offensive graffiti’.

Violet didn’t see what was so offensive about _lesbians live longer_ , or, _fuck your patriarchal cistem,_ but nonetheless, she’d spent two consecutive afternoon scrubbing the text away before the bi-monthly parents evening. She guessed some people just couldn’t handle the truth.

Brody kept elbowing her from time to time as she worked her way through Clementine’s name.

“What are you doing?” She whispered, leaning closer. “You’ll get in trouble.”

“Yep,” Violet agreed.

Brody was taken aback for a second. When Violet glanced at her, she was frowning. Her auburn hair was sleeked back, but a few strands had escaped to frame her face.

“How does it not bother you?” She asked, incredulous. “They’ll probably tell your parents, if you get caught. I thought they weren’t supposed to know.”

They weren’t, according to the story Violet told.

She'd been sent to Ericson’s four years prior, for her quote-unquote misbehavior. That’s how they’d labeled it, anyhow. The truth of it was that she hadn’t been misbehaving, so much as she’d been in serious need of therapy – but it wasn’t like her parents gave a fuck, either way. They’d seen her acting out, and they’d decided it’d be easier on them all if she just… disappeared.

They could continue being their happy-go-lucky family, only their child would be a convenient secret, kept hidden behind curtains and only whispered about during drunk gossip nights with shocked tones and inappropriate giggles.

_She really tried to run away, oh my? She really did that to herself, did she? How on Earth did you cope with someone like that, God, isn’t it so much easier now that she’s gone?_

Violet guessed it really was easier, now that she was gone. Because her parents hadn’t said a word to her in four years, whether via letter or in person.

Of course, they showed up do the parent evenings. They said all their niceties to the principal and the rest of the faculty, and were, for all intents and purposes, the most perfect, _delightful_ and polite upper-class family.

But once they were given some alone time – meaning, when they were supposed to be talking to their kid and asking how life was and how her studies were going – they sat still and tight-lipped, not so much as glancing in Violet’s direction.

At first, it had been hard. She’d tried to make them talk. She’d told them about her achievements; about how much she was improving with her grades and how some teachers had even complimented her behavior. Then, when she hadn’t gotten a reaction, she’d moved on to riling them up. She’d talked about the other stuff – the smoking, and the drinking. She’d told them lies, the most outrageous shit she could think of.

Nothing. Her parents had stopped caring.

Violet hadn’t really bothered telling anyone that her parents were assholes, except to Clementine and a handful of others. It wouldn’t have made a difference, and mostly she would’ve just garnered pity, which was the last fucking thing Violet wanted. It was just easier to lie, to pretend.

So, she’d told them that she was deep in the closet, and that’s why she didn’t want to talk about her parents. Because she hadn’t come out, and they’d be furious if she did.

It was partially true. She hadn’t come out. They didn’t know she was Violet, and they didn’t know she had a girlfriend. But Violet didn’t think they’d be furious. It was one more disappointment in their eyes – their imperfect, fucked up child wasn’t even what they’d wanted her to be. Not the nice, athletic son they’d wanted. Pretty fucking far from it, really.

Violet would tell them, at some point. Once she ran out of other things to talk about, during their visits. She wasn’t putting a deadline on it, though.

“Nah, they’re not,” she told Brody. “But hey, if the principal really wants to explain to my rich ass parents, who fund most of his pay check, that their daughter spends her classes carving a girl’s name to her desk, then by all means. He’s free to do that. It’s not gonna be my fault then if they withdraw me to some place else that can manage my _tendencies._ ”

Brody snorted quietly. Mr. Everett shot them another warning look – Violet waved innocently at him, her lips stretching into a wide grin. His eyes lingered for a moment, squinted in suspicion, before he slowly turned back to his presentation.

“I’d love to hear _that_ conversation,” Brody said, amusement lining her voice. “But okay, I hear ya. Scratch your girl’s name then. You can copy my notes later, if you want to.”

Violet flashed her what she considered her most charming smile. “You, Brodes, are a lifesaver.”

Brody rolled her eyes, uncapping her orange highlighter. “Don’t I know it.”

Violet glanced at the clock on the wall. They still had half an hour of class to go. She turned back to her desk and started outlining the E with gentle, precise draws.

 

*

 

“I’m sorry,” Louis said, tilting his head at her. “You scratched her name to your desk?”

Violet nodded, her mouth full of pasta. “Mhm.”

Louis’ face pulled into an expression somewhere between ecstatic and scared. He twirled his fork around a string of spaghetti on his plate, not really eating. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “You–“

Violet swallowed. “ _Yes_ ,” she said emphatically, cutting him off. “I know, I’m dumb and reckless and principle Fuckface is going to have a field day with me, but come _on_ , it was so worth it.”

“I mean, it’ll be worth it once you tell Clem,” Louis said. “Because I bet you she’ll be having some sort of like, morality crisis over that. You really couldn’t have picked another class than history?”

Violet shrugged. “I was bored,” she said, not really wanting to explain her dumb logic, which was that the fact that Clem’s name was on Violet’s desk in Lee Everett’s class was some real romantic bullshit. It was a running joke that Everett had unofficially adopted Clementine. She’d appreciate that Violet had essentially made them official under his watchful gaze. It was like, a pseudo-marriage. But like, not, because they were seventeen and Violet hadn’t even plotted her life further than _graduate-and-fifteen-question-marks._

“You’re always bored in class, though,” Louis pointed out. “That’s like, your thing.”

Violet lifted a skeptical brow. “And you’re not?”

Louis grinned. “We weren’t talking about me.”

“It just thought it’d be cute,” Violet said, shrugging. “Sue me.”

“I’m sure the principal would love that,” Louis said absently. He’d moved on to stabbing a piece of tomato with his fork, but it kept slipping. He was biting his lip in concentration. “Did you hear, he called Marlon’s parents yesterday?”

Violet looked up so sharply she thought she could’ve given herself whiplash. “What for?”

“Oh, you know,” Louis said airily, “for getting caught making out with his roommate.”

“With his–” Violet blinked rapidly. “But that’s _you_.”

“Yeah,” Louis agreed, his face splitting into a wide grin. “I know.”

Violet needed to up her gossip game. She hadn’t even known Minnie was bi until she’d heard Michael scream about it in the cafeteria, loudly proclaiming for everyone to know how they were breaking up now that she’d ‘revealed her true self’.

(He’d had his room sabotaged the next week, but if you asked Violet, she didn’t know anything about it, no sir.)

It seemed she missed even the most obvious stuff, the stuff that was happening right under her nose. Like how one of her best friends was hooking up with Mr. I’m Straight, But Like, I Have Nothing Against Gay People Or Anything.

“ _What_ ,” she hissed, leaning closer over the table. “Since when is Marlon into you? Since when are you into _him_?”

Louis shrugged, aiming for nonchalance but missing it by a mile. “Me, personally, I’ve been writing dreamy notes about him in my diary since I was twelve. Him, though… we didn’t get that far, I’m afraid. My vile seductive ways got in the way of actual meaningful conversation.”

“What’s so attractive about his ratty hair, anyway?” Violet mumbled under her breath. When Louis opened his mouth to answer, she hurried to ask, “So, why didn’t they call your parents about it? If they called Marlon’s?”

Louis’ mouth snapped shut. He looked dismayed. “Well, they did,” he said. “It’s just that I came out to them like a few months ago already, so it wasn’t like, news or anything.”

Violet threw her hands in the air in frustration. “Why don’t you tell me these things?” She asked. “Fuck’s sake, Louis, I thought we were friends.”

“We _are_ ,” he said. “You’re just a little… unapproachable, sometimes.”

It wasn’t like she could argue with that. Violet knew she had a reputation around Ericson’s, and that said reputation wasn’t the greatest. She knew some of the guys had dubbed her as _the angry dyke_ , which she felt was fair enough but still kind of a dick move on their part. She wasn’t the most emotionally available, or the kindest, or nicest.

But that didn’t mean she didn’t _care_.

“You can tell me stuff, you know,” she said quietly. “I wanna hear these things. Lou. I wanna hear about you coming out, and your dumb crush on Marlon. And other stuff, too.”

Louis had the decency to look sheepish. “I know,” he said. “Look, okay, if you really think I won’t bore you or anything–”

“You _won’t_.”

“–then yes, I came out. I sent them a letter that essentially boiled down to, _hey, I’m pan, you can google that if you don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about, hope we’re cool, see you in a few months if you still wanna_.”

“Oh,” Violet said. “That’s… forward.”

Louis shrugged again. “I figured it wasn’t going to help to beat around the bush, you know. Anyway, they wrote back to me and were like, _okay, that’s fine, we love you honey_ – except, you know, basically that was all my mom and my dad’s like, ‘adjusting’, or something.”

_Adjusting_ was a difficult word, Violet thought. It could’ve meant anything from _I’m too nice to outright reject you_ to _I’m genuinely a bit surprised, but I will come around soon enough_. You never really knew.

“That sucks,” she said. “Sorry about your dad. They’re still coming over this week, though?”

“Yeah,” Louis said. “At least my mom is.” He made a face. “She says she wants to meet Marlon.”

Violet couldn’t help the knee-jerk reaction to laugh. “Good luck with that,” she said, grinning. “Tell Marlon to cut his fucking hair, and maybe she’ll even like him.”

“Oh, but his hair is such a big part of his charm,” Louis lamented. “What would he even be without the ugly mullet?”

“A normal punk?” Violet suggested.

“Boring,” Louis countered. “Anyway, yeah. I’m supposed to talk with him today about… everything. So, I’ll get back to you.” He looked at her, smiling a little. “What about you, Vi? What’s up with you, other than being sappy?”

She frowned. “It’s not sappy, it’s standing up against an oppressive system with my anarchistic ways.”

“More like your lesbian agenda,” Louis said, amused.

Violet shrugged, as if to say, _so what._ “Either way, not much is ‘up with me’. The parental visitation will be another fifteen minutes of pure, torturing silence as always.”

Louis looked hesitant. “You’re not telling them about… Clem? Or you?”

There was a nasty twinge in Violet’s chest at the thought of it. She could, she thought. She should. But despite her reassurances to herself that her parents didn’t care, deep down, she was still afraid. She needed that connection to them, if not only to fund her stay at Ericson’s.

The school was shit, yeah. The staff was mostly terrible. But there were people like Brody, and Louis. And most importantly, there was Clementine.

If her parents caught on to what Violet was doing, who she was… it wasn’t a given that they’d be alright with it. That they could continue ignoring her existence, as they’d done so far.

“I don’t know,” she said aloud. “It’s all so fucked up, honestly, I don’t… I don’t know.”

Louis reached across the table, and laid his hands on hers. “We’re all going to support you, you know,” he said softly. “Whatever it is you do. Whenever it is that you do it.”

Violet managed a small smile. Louis was sometimes too good for his own good. “Thanks,” she said. “You’re a good guy, Lou. Seriously.”

“Yeah,” he said, huffing. “I know.”

They ate the rest of their lunch in comfortable silence.

 

*

 

Clementine was laying down on her bed when Violet opened the door and stepped inside. At the sound of the door creaking, she glanced away from her book – she smiled as she spotted Violet, and sat up, discarding the book on the floor without dog-earing the page.

“You’re back,” she said, sounding genuinely happy about the prospect.

Violet still had trouble believing that she was dating Clementine, sometimes. Because even though Clem was rough around the edges, and difficult to get to know, once you were in her good graces she was the best person you could have the fortune of meeting.

She was kind. She was generous. She was so beautiful, inside and out, that it took Violet’s breath away sometimes.

And somehow, she saw something in Violet that was worth falling for. It beat her what the fuck that something could’ve possibly been. Violet didn’t think she was all that great – she was abrasive, she was rash, she was… difficult. But Clementine didn’t care about any of that.

She just saw Violet. And she liked her.

It was a fucking miracle.

“Yup,” Violet said, pushing the door shut. “Surprisingly, I survived another day on this oh-so-dangerous war zone.”

Clementine rolled her eyes, more fond than annoyed. “Joke all you want, one day you’ll be sent to the principal’s office and they’ll just ship you off and that’ll be the last we see of you.”

Violet snorted, walking over to her bed and crouching next to it. She began pulling her books out of her backpack and pushing them under the bed. “I think you’re more right than you believe,” she said.

“Well, I think so too,” Clementine’s voice carried over from behind her. She paused. “I heard about history.”

Violet stopped, her math book pushed halfway under, her fingers splayed on the cover. Suddenly, her stomach felt like a flutter of nerves. It was something only Clementine managed to do, it seemed. Make her nervous. “Oh?” She asked, hesitant. “And what did… what do you think?”

“ _Well_ ,” Clementine started. Violet could hear her stand up, the bed frame creaking from the relieved pressure. “I think you were being stupid, for one.”

Violet gulped. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Clementine took a few steps and flopped down on Violet’s bed. Violet glanced up at her – she was fighting to contain a smile. Her nerves eased. “And for another, I think it was really cute.”

_Cute_. The word echoed around Violet’s mind. Clementine wasn’t mad. Fucking Louis had made her paranoid, with what he’d said about Clementine having a morality crisis over it. She thought it was cute. She wasn’t mad.

She moved to sit next to Clementine, the math book forgotten on the floor. “You really think so?” She asked, knocking her shoulder against Clementine’s. “That it wasn’t like, reckless vandalism of school property in your favorite teacher’s class?”

Clementine huffed, glancing down at her feet. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was that, too. But I don’t really mind. And besides, Lee thought it was cute, too.”

The nerves returned, tenfold. “You talked to Mr. Everett about it?” Violet asked in a strangled voice.

“Yeah,” Clementine laughed. She looked up at Violet, the corners of her eyes crinkled. “Stop worrying so much, Vi. Like I said, he thought it was cute. I think you officially have his approval.”

“Oh, I’m so glad the father-in-law approves,” Violet joked. She sobered up, carefully twining their fingers and looking down at their hands. They seemed to fit so well together. Just like her leg felt natural, pressed against Clementine’s. Their shoe laces matched. “I just thought… I don’t know. I liked having something permanent.”

Clementine nudged her gently, and Violet looked up. “Something stable?” She asked.

Violet shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess. Not that you aren’t, it’s just...”

“I get it,” Clementine assured her. “It’s just that it’s difficult to remember, sometimes. I get that.” She paused, smiling a little. “Can we limit this to a single desk, though? I think the principal might actually have a fit if you make this into a thing.”

Violet returned her smile, and it felt easy. “Awe, just as I thought I’d upgrade to graffiti. I was thinking, right before the parents come in, I’d spray ‘ _Violet-heart-Clementine’_ on the front door. You know, just so they’d know.”

“You’re an idiot,” Clementine said, but it sounded more like _I love you_.

“Yeah,” Violet said. “But I’m your idiot.”

Clementine rested her head against Violet’s shoulder. Her curls tickled her skin gently. “Yes, you are,” she said quietly, and squeezed their fingers. “Never change, Violet.”

Violet glanced out the window, where the sun was beginning to set down. The soft orange glow of it painted the white clouds, stretched across the sky. “Never,” she promised.

And for Clementine, she intended to keep all her promises.


End file.
